[Indexed as: Unifor, Local 2301 v. British Columbia (Environmental Appeal Board)]

摘要

Environmental law - Statutory protection of environment - Environmental offences - Appeals - To court - Grounds for appeal - Miscellaneous - Company operated aluminum smelter and union represented company's workers - Company's emissions of S02 were limited to 27 metric tons per day, which was later increased to 42 metric tons per day in amendment letter - Specific impact threshold criteria were not set out in amendment letter but were confirmed in letter of approval - Union was concerned that if there were detrimental effects on plants, soil or water then company could be required to mitigate effects or reduce emissions of S02 but there was no similar protection for detrimental effects on humans from excessive S02 emissions - Union unsuccessfully appealed - Environmental Appeal Board refused to hear union's appeal respecting impact on human health of increased S02 emissions from company's smelter, finding that letter of approval did not constitute decision within meaning of s. 99 of Environmental Management Act for purposes of appeal under s. 100 of Act - Union brought application for judicial review - Application granted - Appropriate standard of review was reasonableness, not correctness - In applying standard of reasonableness, it was unreasonable for board to conclude that union's appeal must be rejected on ground that letter of approval was not appealable decision within meaning of s. 99 of Act - Decision effectively required that in any case of staged decision-making, any person who believed that they could possibly be adversely affected by subsequent stage must bring appeal at first stage just in case second stage turned out to be objectionable - It was unreasonable to require someone to commence an appeal of objectionable decision until full content of that decision was known - Looking at ordinary and usual meaning of words of s. 99, definition of "decision" was extremely broad, and it was difficult to conceive that in enacting such broad definition, legislature could have intended to exclude decision of sort contained in letter of approval.